Downing Street Memogate: The Secret Way to War - Mark Danner

Via Tomgram and NY Review of Books comes Mark Danner's incisive analysis of the secret Downing Street Memo and its implications... and the NY Review of Books is the first major US publication to actually publish the secret Downing Street "Minute"!...

The Secret Way to War "...Oct. 16, 2002, and Congress had just voted to authorize the pResident to go to war against Iraq... The 107th Congress had just become "one of the few called by history to authorize military action to defend our country and the cause of peace." But, he hastened to add, no one should assume that war was inevitable. Though "Congress has now authorized the use of force," Bush said emphatically, "I have not ordered the use of force. I hope the use of force will not become necessary."... As Americans watch their young men and women fighting in the third year of a bloody counterinsurgency war in Iraq, that has now killed more than 1,600 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis, they are left to ponder "the unanswered question" of what would have happened if UN weapons inspectors had been allowed to complete their work. What would have happened if the UN weapons inspectors had been allowed to prove, before the US went "into battle," what David Kay and his colleagues finally proved afterward? Thanks to a formerly secret memorandum published by the London Times on May 1, we now have a partial answer to that question. The memo, which records the minutes of a meeting of PM Tony Blair's senior foreign policy and security officials, shows that even as Bush told Americans in October 2002 that he "hope[d] the use of force will not become necessary"... Bush had in fact already definitively decided, at least three months before, to choose this "last resort" of going "into battle"... with Iraq. Whatever the Iraqis chose to do or not do, the President's decision to go to war had long since been made. On July 23, 2002, eight months before American and British forces invaded, senior British officials met with Prime Minister Tony Blair to discuss Iraq. The gathering, similar to an American "principals meeting," brought together Geoffrey Hoon, the defense secretary; Jack Straw, the foreign secretary; Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general; John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, which advises the prime minister; Sir Richard Dearlove, also known as "C," the head of MI6 (the equivalent of the CIA); David Manning, the equivalent of the national security adviser; Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, the chief of the Defense Staff (or CDS, equivalent to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs); Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff; Alastair Campbell, director of strategy (Blair's communications and political adviser); and Sally Morgan, director of government relations. After John Scarlett began the meeting with a summary of intelligence on Iraq -- notably, that "the regime was tough and based on extreme fear" and that thus the "only way to overthrow it was likely to be by massive military action," "C" offered a report on his visit to Washington, where he had conducted talks with George Tenet, his counterpart at the CIA, and other high officials. This passage is worth quoting in full: "C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Seen from today's perspective this short paragraph is a strikingly clear template for the future, establishing these points: 1. By mid-July 2002, eight months before the war began, President Bush had decided to invade and occupy Iraq. 2. Bush had decided to "justify" the war "by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD." 3. Already "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." 4. Many at the top of the administration did not want to seek approval from the United Nations (going "the UN route"). 5. Few in Washington seemed much interested in the aftermath of the war. We have long known, thanks to Bob Woodward and others, that military planning for the Iraq war began as early as November 21, 2001, after the President ordered Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to look at "what it would take to protect America by removing Saddam Hussein if we have to," and that Secretary Rumsfeld and General Tommy Franks, who headed Central Command, were briefing American senior officials on the progress of military planning during the late spring and summer of 2002; indeed, a few days after the meeting in London leaks about specific plans for a possible Iraq war appeared on the front pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post....

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